Sweet Little Lies
by Yalens
Summary: As Asuka experiences, a lie can be comforting. A comfort that you convince yourself of, a sweet light to blind you. But the truth, the painful darkness behind the false light, remains there. Asuka liked Judai. One-half FS as an implied SS.
1. Chapter 1

**SWEET LITTLE LIES:**

NOTES BEFORE READING:

Kayz. Despite the tag FianceShipping, this is NOT a FianceShipping piece. In fact, if anything, it is ANTI-FianceShipping (it receives the tag simply because it is somewhat centric on Asuka's feelings for Judai, only one half of the cake). If you are a FianceShipper and would not like to see your shipping totally trashed, I suggest you don't read. If you read past this point and it ruins your day and whatnot, don't blame me.

This is also a one shot, and will focus on Asuka's feelings for Judai, but have an underlying theme of "painful truth, comforting lies" with lots of (hopefully not abstract and random) symbolism and references here and there. I hope I don't lose you.

It is set, actually, in the fourth season. You can call it AU if you like: me and DigitalStarry have our little fantasy remake of GX, which among other things, has a fourth season that actually _isn't _cut short, ahem. We've basically set out an outline for teh show to be redone in our head. As is important to this fanfiction, Darkness is trying to take over the Academia and the ficcie begins near the end of a duel between Asuka and Yakeru (I didn't care to include the whole duel, because I didn't feel it was important). Yakeru is a servant of Darkness at this time, though he is usually part of the main protagonist cast (though we frequently have him somehow end up on the opposite side for angst reasons xD).

I would, if I ever had the time, write up our whole remake, but for now, I'm writing it in pieces. Maybe one day I'll glue them all together into one fanfiction...

In addition, yeah, I apologize for the OC, generally I don't use OCs, but feh. Originally the second character, Asuka's opponent, was going to be Yusuke. However, I couldn't see how the flashback would work if the character didn't have the memory, so I needed a character who had such a memory, and who better than the third roommate of the "SpiritShipping room" who also happens to be Judai's childhood friend. Gomen~.

I've been working on this one for awhile, since, well, Heleentje inspired me by showing me a rather nicely written ficcie about Asuka's unreturned feelings for Judai, so I wanted to give it a shot myself, and I already had this duel in my head between Darkness-aligned Yakeru and Asuka where Yakeru brings the truth down on poor Asuka.

Lots and lots of symbolism, but you have to catch it. Even the slightest details have little things hidden in them. Although, I think I've gotten a little abstract at parts, and most people won't get many of the references to non-GX material I throw in…

Characters (asterisk denotes a main character): Asuka*, Yakeru*, Judai*, Johan*, Jun, Fubuki, Darkness, Tsutomi, Darkness, Edo

Shippings involved:

Implicit SpiritShipping (and not-so-implicit at some parts)

SoulShipping if you squint

ValentineShipping, once again, if you squint… It also gets explicit mention by Yakeru in Chapter One

And, of course, FianceShipping, in its way of presence.

In addition, this story contains some homosexual content. If this offends you, please refrain from reading.

Chapter One

"I now activate the trap Etaqua Explosive Bubble. I choose effect number 2: By sending one monster on my side of the field to the graveyard- namely, my Lekunga token- I destroy one of your monsters and inflict equivalent damage to your life points. I choose the only monster on your side of the field. I destroy Cyber Prima."

Asuka's heart sank as her life points did the same. They had dropped down to 1000. Yakeru had reversed the lead.

Yakeru smirked. "Now we continue my questions of you.".

Asuka stared in horror.

Yakeru had placed his hand of cards down on his duel disk, which he promptly took off his hand and placed on the ground. Unheard of.

He walked towards her. She could hear his footsteps approaching him, like a reaper nearing its kill.

The sky was covered in clouds, except for one ray of light, which oddly shined directly in behind Asuka.

She stared at him defiantly. His golden eyes glittered evilly, the way they always did while he served Darkness.

"Why do you continue living, Asuka-san?"

Asuka wanted to scream. He had been interrogating her in such methods throughout the whole duel. Something about it... something... made her uneasy, as if he had been planning something all along. She wanted to hurt him. But she wouldn't. She was strong. She would endure it and win the duel, she told herself. She would not fall to Darkness. She would defeat it.

"Why do you keep asking me questions you should be asking yourself?"

Yakeru's eyebrows raised. Asuka couldn't help but focus on that unnatural golden color of his eyes. Yakeru's eyes were usually a beautiful, yet distant and cold light indigo. Like ice. Asuka mused to herself how this was beautiful in the opposite way from Judai's: Judai's were beautiful for being deep and light brown, with the warmth of a small flame. Warm and enthusiastic to live life. Yakeru's eyes were beautiful for the opposite reason: for always giving the impression of cool observance of elegant cold. Perhaps, such eyes would have still suited him now. Yet, they glittered with nothing but pure gold. They seemed to sparkle maliciously.

"How could you know pain, Asuka?"

Asuka nearly scoffed. She stopped herself. During the emotional intensity of the duel, she had begun to lose her composure.

"Yakeru, I don't think you could know any significant amount of pain. You are reasonably attractive. You are intelligent. You are a fair duelist. You had friends. What is it, then?"

"You remain to be so simple minded… you still can't use that head of yours, can you. You still don't get it. Those things could hardly matter."

Asuka thought, he should be greatful, that arrogant snob. As if pain made him better than her. The pressure of the duel had gotten to her though. She exploded:"You and your stupid 'pain', is it not? You and your self-pity!"

Yakeru reeled back, as if hurt, but she knew this wasn't the case. Yakeru might have been hurt. But the boy standing in front of her was not the old Yakeru, he was a tormenter and an imposter- Darkness- as well as an agent of the enemy. Darkness obviously didn't care one bit- nor was it insulted by an insult aimed at a separate entity. She felt stupid. She couldn't even remember who she was dueling.

"Ow. You've hurt my feelings, you mean, mean, bully of a girl". Yakeru made a hideous, fake pouting face - nothing the real Yakeru would've done- or was it? The current Yakeru seemed to be a mix of Darkness-influenced aggression as well as his old personality and memory. The sarcasm could have easily been the old Yakeru as well. And the cynicism, intelligence, the graceful movements, and the dueling style. Who was she dueling?

He breathed "How could you say such a thing to me...?". He threw his long locks of hair into the wind, into the rain, into the weather. He closed his eyes as he whirled his head gracefully to the side, slowly opening his sparkling golden eyes. There was something malicious about this unnatural grace. If anything, being influenced by Darkness had made him more beautiful in his movements, not less.

Then, he suddenly began to approach. Asuka clutched her breast in fear. She knew something was coming. Her long locks of light brown hair danced on her shoulders and back as she shivered. A chill ran down her spine as Yakeru slowly moved toward her. Asuka's hazel eyes trembled within their sockets.

Suddenly a sharp pain hit her. She shut her eyes and screamed and wailed from it. Her chest felt as if it had exploded. Her graceful, effeminate, perfect form crumpled and she fell to the ground, moaning and screeching with pain. Her breathing was hard and unsteady.

Then, she opened her eyes. Yakeru's fist was out, tight in a ball, punching a spot above where she now sat. Her form, usually taller than his, moved its head. She looked up. She realized that where he had punched was her breast.

The pain Asuka had felt in her body had been so widespread and so intense that she hadn't realized where she had been hit. Yakeru was a bastard, truly a bastard.

"You! You… how dare you…"

Yakeru's response was calm, composed. "I wanted you to feel that pain. That hell. That feeling of emptiness in your stomach. The unbearableness. Have you felt it?"

"I feel more like my chest has exploded.", the victim stated bluntly.

"Ah, I knew. Did you forget that I can see in your mind? Perhaps I should inflict more to get the point across."

"You wouldn't dare..." Asuka breathed.

Yakeru laughed. "Oh, no. I won't be inflicting it there any more. Too much of a target, too easy."

In spite of Yakeru's blatant sexual harassment of her, Asuka was relieved, almost thrilled. For such a slender boy, Yakeru had packed quite a punch. It wouldn't be happening again, at least for now.

"Don't be too happy. What you will feel soon is more like what I've felt. In fact, it is just so much worse than that in every way."

Asuka could not imagine what he was talking about. Was "it" what she would feel, or what he had felt? And was the other "that", or was it something else.

"Asuka, do you have any dreams?"

Asuka attempted not to respond, not to even think about a response, but thoughts flooded into her head.

"Don't forget that I can see in your mind. Even if you don't say it, what you try to hide, I will know."

Asuka refused to believe this definitely obvious farce, yet she, in spite of herself, felt she knew it was true. "I want to become a teacher at Duel Academy, so that I may teach future generations of duelists and nurture their growth."

Yakeru's palm abruptly struck his temple. He laughed. "Haha~. Not what I meant. But, indeed, I believe, as I have believed, that you do intend to nurture- babies."

Asuka was furious.

"You want them to be Judai's babies, no? I think I believe I can easily imagine you daydreaming up something like that."

Asuka cringed. Yakeru was right, not by his supernatural powers given to him by Darkness, but by his own intuition. Now he had confirmed it with his mind reading.

"I see I was right. Do you understand how utterly pointless having a dream like that is?"

"How is it pointless?" Asuka asked in defense of herself.

"Because no matter how hard you try, how high you bounce your boobs as you walk by him, how many times you flirt, how many times you wink at him, he won't return such affections."

"Why not?"

"To put it frankly- you aren't his type."

"Not his type... than I can change to become his type..."

The response hit her like a knife. "So you intend to change your gender?"

Each word penetrated her like a dart after dart and cut like icicles. Her response failed to reach her lips as she continued to inhale breath.

"I repeat my original question: why do you continue to live?"

Asuka's breath did not stop inhaling. She was strong. She could take this, for sure. Yes, definitely she was strong. However, despite being strong…

"How do you know, Yakeru-kun? How do you know for sure? Why can you just say so certainly that…"

Yakeru looked towards the sky and then back at her. His expression was solemn, calm, just as before, yet now, it seemed his aggressiveness had abated. He looked… more human, in a way. Then Asuka realized why. His eyes had reverted back to their usual color.

"I've known Judai for… how long? Let's see… about… thirteen or fourteen years now."

"But does that really matter? Would you really know what he likes? I've known my own brother for my whole life, and still can't make up my mind on whether he actually likes any of the girls he sees so commonly and which ones."

"A brother and a childhood friend are different relationships. The latter involves much more mutual understanding, unless of course, the two are overlapping."

Asuka was somewhat relieved. At least, for this moment, the level of emotional intensity had calmed down. Yakeru seemed almost sympathetic to her.

"You've always liked him, haven't you? You admired how competitive he was, yet how he respected his opponent so much at the same time. You liked his thick hair, his tan skin, his soft brown eyes, and his eyelashes. You liked how he always won. His energy. He's like the sun, radiating light and warmth, is he not?"

Asuka said nothing, but she knew it was true.

"But he is like the sun in many other ways too. The light he gives off serves to blind as well, as we see very clearly with you. When the sun is out, you cannot see the moon, cannot see the night, and cannot see the stars.

"If only you could see the moon. You would see that the moon too, can be beautiful just as the sun is. But no, you absorbed yourself in the lie.

"No matter how the heliotrope desires it, the flower cannot reach the sun. The sun is distant, and unreachable, it is beyond the sky.

"Meanwhile, you could have been returning Manjoume-kun's affections. He is, indeed, quite an attractive guy. There are plenty of girls who would want to have him. But instead, he is bent on you, just like you are bent on Judai.

"However, just like you are for Jun, Judai is hopeless for you to have. Hopeless."

Asuka had to rebut him. She didn't like him stating all of this in her face. "How can you just say that? How can you just say its hopeless…!".

If Yakeru couldn't understand her (and she hoped with all her heart he couldn't), Asuka didn't understand herself anymore either. Why was this making her so flustered? Judai was only a boy she wanted, and that wasn't her whole life, was it? Wait, he's the only boy I want, Asuka thought, but she hastened to correct herself, to keep herself strong:_ only a boy I want. Not my life._

"I see that me telling you with my words doesn't work. I will have to give you a certain memory".

Before she could respond, suddenly, Asuka was Yakeru. It was difficult to explain, but somehow, reality had been morphed.

Not the current Yakeru, but the one of the earlier part of the senior year.

She thought it was odd to be Yakeru. It was almost as if her body had changed. She could not only see what Yakeru saw at the moment, but she _was_ Yakeru. She felt what Yakeru had felt. Heard what Yakeru had heard. Smelled what Yakeru had smelled (which was nothing at the time). It felt different to be in Yakeru's body. Heck, it would feel different to be in the body of any male. But she felt Yakeru's soft teal bangs and sideburns on her face, and the single, longest strand on her back. She did not feel the hair on her back like when she was Asuka, Yakeru's hair hung above his shoulders. Her back felt oddly bare without her hair falling onto it. She felt Yakeru's eyelashes as she opened her heavy eyes. They must have been longer than hers, as odd as it seemed.

But she also felt something else as Yakeru- aside from the physical differences. Uneasiness in her chest. In her mind. Or, to be more correct, his mind. Fear, maybe? But of what, she did not know. All she knew was that it felt like something was creeping up on her- something she didn't want to reach her.

It was night. She was in bed- Yakeru's bed of course. Though Yakeru had been in Obelisk Blue at the time, as he was for the overwhelming majority of his time at Duel Academia, he had, in the third year, slept in the same room as Judai, apparently on the top bunk. This was due to some arrangement because apparently, with recent promotions and the new transfer students coming at that time and sleeping in Obelisk Blue, the boys dorm of Obelisk Blue was, in fact, overpopulated. Yakeru, sick of the constant noise in the highest dorm had volunteered to sleep in the Red dorm, landing himself in the one room with two vacancies- Judai's.

There was one other person who slept in that room though, on the botton bunk (Judai's was in the middle), and the significance of his identity finally hit Asuka- Johan Andersen.

And that'll be the first chapter. I think it may add up to about 3 chapters, it'll remain relatively short... So, uh, Read and Review, and I hope my first serious attempt at a story didn't turn out that bad... I hope you enjoyed~.

I probably won't get the next chapter up for awhile though (schoolwork, blah...).

Also, credits to LC (DigitalStarry here) for proofreading and giving advice~. I really appreciate it^^.


	2. Chapter 2

**SWEET LITTLE LIES:**

CHAPTER TWO.

BEFORE NOTE: extra warning for impicit Shounen-ai. No likey, no ready, no flamey, how it always is...

...and, somehow, I'm rather dissapointed with myself on this chapter, so I my be deleting it and rewriting/editing it without further notice... Yes, I've already edited it, but LC didn't want to edit this time, so I was forced to edit my own work (I've felt to shy to ask for a beta reader... yeah, I'm weird like that ), and you know how unproductive editing your own work generally is... hope you guys aren't as dissapointed as I was with it...

Asuka thought it was odd to be Yakeru. It was almost as if her body had changed. She could not only see what Yakeru saw at the moment, but she _was_ Yakeru. She felt what Yakeru had felt. Heard what Yakeru had heard. Smelled what Yakeru had smelled (which was nothing at the time). It felt different to be in Yakeru's body. Heck, it would feel different to be in the body of any male. But she felt Yakeru's soft teal bangs and sideburns on her face, and the single, longest strand on her back. She did not feel the hair on her back like when she was Asuka, Yakeru's hair hung above his shoulders. She felt Yakeru's eyelashes as she opened her heavy eyes. They must have been longer than hers, as odd as it seemed.

But she also felt something else as Yakeru- aside from the physical differences. Uneasiness in her chest. In her mind. Or, to be more correct, his mind. Fear, maybe? But of what, she did not know. All she knew was that it felt like something was creeping up on her- something she didn't want to reach her.

In Yakeru's body, she felt another feeling alien to her, aside from the constant uneasiness that seemed to wax and wane. This was not a mental discomfort, it was physical: he needed to urinate. It was almost comical to Asuka, how different the urge to urinate felt in the body of a boy than in that of a girl. In fact, the distribution of nerves in Yakeru's body was of course, quite different from hers, as his body was quite different from hers. There was no need to ponder this more.

Apparently, the comfort of Yakeru's sheets was not enough to keep him from shifting and preparing to get up, Asuka guessed, to urinate. It was odd, how this possession-illusion of sorts that Yakeru had put her in worked: she retained her own thoughts, but saw what Yakeru saw, felt what he felt, heard what he heard, and so on. But she did not know Yakeru's thoughts. Rather, she felt their presence in Yakeru's head. It was as if they were in a language unintelligible to her. Furthermore, Yakeru's thoughts were much more frequent, and appeared to be occurring at higher speed than hers usually did, while they seemed more garbled and less organized, often sounding simultaneously in his head. Funny, what could one be thinking about while lying in bed half asleep?

Sounds from beneath Yakeru's bunk, Yakeru's ear received sound and transferred it to Asuka's brain. Yet, she couldn't make them out. Perhaps, Yakeru could. The slowing of his thoughts seemed to imply that he was listening. He must have had better hearing than her.

However, from the general nature of the sound, she could tell vaguely what it was. Voices. Furthermore, the voices were hushed into a very soft whisper. Asuka could not make out their tones. However, logically, they could be only the voices of Judai and Johan. And they must have been talking to each other.

Remembering what Yakeru had said to her previously, before she was in this reverie with in his… where was she? How did she get into a scene in Yakeru's memory, reliving it as such? But still, she knew what this was going to lead up to, like it was a book that she had already read the end of. It was an awful feeling, knowing that each second, you grew closer to a moment you dreaded.

Yakeru stirred, struggling to force himself up. He rose his chest out of the sheets, but then flopped down again, succumbing to the comfort of the sheets. It made a huge noise as his body ungracefully hit the mattress and bounced, yet Johan and Judai continued that their hushed conversation as if they hadn't noticed. Asuka would not admit to herself that she in fact knew the reason why they hadn't noticed. Because it couldn't possibly be true. This must be an illusion. An illusion, to trick her into surrendering her mind and will to Darkness' designs. She would not succumb. She wouldn't.

Yakeru's bare foot touched the top step of the ladder. No, Asuka thought. She didn't want to hear more. With every second of this scene that continued, she felt more and more dragged to a doom she could not control by the current of a river. But she couldn't close Yakeru's eyes or plug his ears. She was powerless.

But wishing it would stop did nothing. As Yakeru's ears grew closer to where Judai and Johan lay- the location was obvious now: under the bed- their conversation started to become clearer to Asuka.

Judai moaned. Softly, but he moaned.

"The moon shines bright, does it not, tonight". The voice was soft, but dry and slightly raspy- Johan. Yet, tonight, there was a twinge of deeper excitement in his voice.

"It does?" The deeper voice must have been Judai.

"In that light, I can see the blush on your cheeks. It looks so cute."

There was a pause in the lack of a response, but more moaning, presumably from Judai.

It was at this point that Asuka realized that Yakeru had made it all the way down the ladder and was now standing still, perhaps, she guessed, inquisitive about the ensuing exchange. She wondered what had been said in the earlier part of the conversation that Yakeru had caught but she had missed.

"Aww, you're blushing more~… Ah, and that redness out of your nose is adorable too~."

That had been Johan's voice, though in a lower and huskier tone than usual, though still teasing. But what was the "redness out of the nose"?

Judai's voice returned but now it was high, perhaps as high as it could go, and almost childish in tone, yet audibly excited. "You're so big, though, Johan-chan… I wa-"

"That'll be enough, Judai~. If you…"

At that point, Asuka could no longer hear the exchange, but she was now thoroughly horrified. Yakeru had walked, briskly, despite Asuka not being aware of him doing so, to the door of the bathroom. An awkward thought-wave seemed to move through his head- no doubt, he was embarrassed at overhearing what he had heard. It vanished as his fingers no daintily felt for the handle. Yakeru's hand wrapped around the handle, and opened the door. Asuka almost sighed with relief- it was over.

But as she didn't know, it wasn't. Not for her, at least.

The door hit the side with a bang- even Yakeru was clumsy while sleepy. But somehow, for some reason, Asuka was absolutely sure that Judai and Johan wouldn't notice if a nuclear bomb were dropped on them. A bathroom door that usually creaked anyways wouldn't be one bit of a problem.

Asuka felt another feeling stirring, but this was not only in his mind. Suddenly, Yakeru sneezed, into his elbow. Of course, the feeling did not go away. His right hand quickly whipped around, somehow now having a tissue in it, and flew to his nose. He sharply exhaled and removed the tissue, then stopped to look at it: a mixture of Yakeru snot and … blood? Asuka definitely was not understanding what all this mention of blood coming out of the nose, first by Johan and now noticed in Yakeru's tissue, was about.

It was at about that moment when Asuka realized that the feeling of excitement was not an emotion in Yakeru's head, which had a separate feeling of embarassment. The other form of the lust seemed to be more detached from the body she was in… then the terror dawned upon her- it was her feeling.

It couldn't be! How could she feel that way?

What she had heard, whatever it was, chilled her and rattled her to the core. She did not want to go back to the memory, to replay it in her head. Nevertheless, somehow, she was aroused at the thought of it, in a different way than Yakeru had been aroused, somehow, less exotic to Asuka's brain. Yakeru was aroused by the concept. Asuka was aroused by Judai. She hated the scene that began to replay in her head, yet somehow, the more it excited her. It tore her conscience in half, how could she be enjoying the scene, why, when she hated it so much. And her feelings continued to rip her apart.

WHY? How could she… _like _it?

Meanwhile, Yakeru was fussing over his hair- needless to say, with sever bedhead (and gosh, Yakeru's hair looked awful with bedhead, with a few strands curling up in random spots, whole strands sticking up in random directions, and one side flattened out and flopped onto the other side with the very back part of the right side sticking out in complete (this made her wonder how Judai's _normally_ extremely puffy hair looked at night; her own hair was somewhat immune to bedhead).

However, despite that slight moment of distraction, the conflict that was tearing Asuka apart in her own head regained control of her thoughts, and she spiraled back into mental chaos.

After an endless repeat of the seemingly eternal struggle within her head, Asuka took focus (why hadn't she just not focused during the whole beginning part of this scenario?) again. It seems she hadn't noticed, but Yakeru had finally stopped fussing over his hair (so pointless anyways, he was just going to go back to bed, she presumed) and was now standing in front of the toilet to realize that whoever had used it last- Judai obviously- hadn't flushed. Yakeru made a disgusting face and flushed it, then gripped the tops of his pants…-at which point, Asuka was suddenly yanked out of Yakeru's memory.

"I think there is no need for you to observe me urinating, you little pervert girl. Thinking about Judai in those ways the whole time."

His words smashed against her as she settled back into her own body. He had been observing the thoughts that went through her head. She felt invaded. She felt ashamed, but didn't know why. She felt uncomfortable and unstable, but didn't know what was off. But now she was back in her own body, and everything was relatively normal, to her relief. It felt like Asuka's body, not someone else's, and that was definitely a plus, to not be stuck in someone else's body that felt so unlike what your's should be in your mind. She no longer felt Yakeru's thoughts in the back of her mind, but the conflict in her conscience and the stirring feelings remained.


End file.
